“I do remember playing with Alan. We played a lot of shows in the round, I do remember that. [They played a traditional front-stage set-up at the fair]. He’s just a big, tall teddy bear. I love him.”

Rimes now is promoting her first disc since leaving Curb – the first of what she says will be a trilogy of Christmas EPs, released one a year. Her show will be mostly Christmas songs, with a hit thrown in here or there.

She sounds genuinely surprised to be told she has played Allentown, responding with an “Oh wow.”

“But yeah, that’s crazy,” she says. “It’s been a long time, so I’m excited to come back.”

Read a full story about Rimes’s upcoming show in The Morning Call on Friday, and come back to Lehigh Valley Music for a full transcript of the interview.